MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov) -- For three days, from February 10 to 12, 22 Russian cities presented an unusual sight. Columns of dozens, and sometimes hundreds of cars with emergency lights turned on slowly moved down central streets.
Many had posters: "Shcherbinsky today, you tomorrow", "Shcherbinsky's Guilty because He Survived!", "No to Flashing Lights."
This is how Russians expressed their indignation with the verdict passed in the Altay Territory against an ordinary man by the name of Oleg Shcherbinsky. In early February he was found guilty of causing a car crash, which led to the deaths of three people, and was sentenced to four years in a penal colony.
Emotions were running so high because of the gap in the social status of the participants in the tragedy. On the one hand, there was Oleg Shcherbinsky, a railway worker, a vivid illustration of the Russian proverb about a switch tender, who is always guilty. On the other hand, there was Mikhail Yevdokimov, Governor of the Altai Territory. Formerly a popular comedian, he became a high-ranking government official with all the attributes of power: gubernatorial limo, blue flashing lights, driver and bodyguard.
The crash took place on the 318th km of the Buisk-Novosibirsk federal highway. Driving his old Toyota, an experienced and sober driver (as proved by the medical examination), Shcherbinsky was making a left turn from the highway. At this moment the Toyota was caught up by the Governor's Mercedes, which was traveling at a speed of at least 149 km per hour. His driver was trying to overtake the Toyota on the left, and hit the car. The Mercedes flew into a ditch and slammed into a birch tree. The Governor himself, his driver and his bodyguard died on impact. The Governor's wife sustained heavy injuries and was taken to hospital, which she left only recently.
The verdict of guilty was based on the argument that the gubernatorial Mercedes was a special car with special lights and sirens, and enjoyed priority on the road for that reason. "Shcherbinsky violated the traffic rules by creating an obstacle to the movement of the Mercedes-Benz S-420, which had priority rights on the road," declared the Judge. To quote the verdict, Yevdokimov's driver "was fulfilling an urgent service mission - he was driving the Governor to a scheduled public event, and had the right to exceed the speed limit for this reason."
Millions of Shcherbinsky's supporters think that this verdict is utterly biased. It puts the right of a big functionary above those of an ordinary man without special privileges. Indeed, Russian traffic rules impose virtually no bans for cars with flashing lights and sirens. They can ignore the red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, turn around across two solid lines, speed, and so on and so forth. However, they can only use all these liberties, if they see that other cars are letting them pass. As Shcherbinsky's lawyers insisted, the Governor's chauffeur violated this single, albeit very important limitation.
The Judge took no account of the road conditions. As independent investigation showed, the road was going steeply uphill, and there were about 40 meters from the hill, which blocked visibility, to the place of the crash. Rushing at a speed of 149 km per hour, the Mercedes covered 41.38 meters in a second. Both drivers had less than a second to react. It is also clear that Shcherbinsky is telling the truth when he says that he did not see the limo, which appeared all of a sudden, and came toward him at a huge speed.
There are many technical details in favor of the railway worker, but they are not the main point. The Altai tragedy has shown how defenseless a rank-and-file driver is before those who have special lights, sirens, and license plates.
These "special" rights were routine practice in the Soviet years, but they no longer fit in the new Russia with its nascent civil society. Article 46 of the Russian Constitution grants the citizens protection (including legal) of their rights and freedoms. It seems that only today Russian people have started taking the phrase seriously. They have seen in it a practical and useful meaning.
The massive protests in defense of Oleg Shcherbinsky were a well-orchestrated effort. In a matter of hours, tens of thousands of people, quite often strangers to each other, exchanged phone calls, and SMS messages, created a Web site, and drove mobile pickets on the streets of Russian cities from Moscow and St. Peteresburg to Chelyabinsk and Novosibirsk.
In numerous interviews with the press, participants in the protest drive agreed: true, priorities on the road are essential to a government official, carrying out an important mission, to the ambulance rushing to save a human life, to the police patrol chasing a criminal. But there is no reason whatsoever to have a whole army of VIPs with privileges on the road... Incidentally, the "urgent public mission", which Yevdokimov was rushing to, was the 70th birth anniversary of a cosmonaut, that is, a family event of no federal significance.
Having listened to the verdict, Shcherbinsky submissively prepared for loss of freedom. "He wanted to start serving his time as quickly as possible, so that the clock started ticking..." said his lawyer. This is a typical reaction of a man of the Soviet making. The older generations remember that nobody ever dared argue against the verdicts of courts in the Soviet years. The totalitarian regime, which deprived people of any rights created the illusion that if the Prosecutor's Office started criminal proceedings there must have been good reason for it.
But in new Russia ordinary people believe much more in the ability of courts to defend their interests regardless of the pressure from above, or high social status of the other side. Public support came as a total surprise to Shcherbinky, and he decided to challenge the court decision. His lawyers have appealed against the verdict to the Altai regional court.
Trivial as it is in any other country, in Russia this protest is a symbol of the times, which attests to the new legal mentality of Russian citizens. In the last few years first-instance courts - district, regional, and republican - have been flooded with appeals against wrong verdicts. In the past year the Supreme Court of Russia reviewed 1.5 million supervisory complaints about the verdicts passed by lower-instance courts. In many cases it concluded that a judge had made a mistake in good faith, and it had to be redressed.
Ordinary Russians are coming to hope that they can find justice in courts. The outcome of Shcherbinsky's case will strengthen or reduce these hopes in a month, when the appeal hearings take place.
